Legal humor. Seriously.

May 06, 2008

Probation May Be Revoked for Sharing

A judge in Vinton County, Ohio, has been asked to revoke probation for Timothy Caudill and send him to prison for nine months. The offense: sharing a Little Debbie snack cake without permission.

At the time of the infraction, Caudill was in a halfway house while on probation for breaking into a bar last year. Prosecutors, apparently having dealt with every other crime in Vinton County, charge that Caudill bought the snack cake -- reportedly an oatmeal-creme pie -- from a vending machine and shared it with another inmate who was "on restriction," a punishment status that apparently precludes snacking. That is a clear rule violation, they say, and therefore prison time is warranted. According to some other reports, Caudill has a history of other rule violations -- although whether they were equally serious is not clear -- and so the unauthorized pie-sharing was merely the last straw, not something they would have prosecuted standing alone.

As Caudill's attorney suggested, keeping him in the halfway house would leave cell space open for those who have committed more serious crimes, such as possibly eating Oreo cookies in some nontraditional way.